Gay Athletes Chosen to Carry Olympic Flame

Gay athletes chosen to carry Olympic flame

Tim Sullivan, chairman of London’s gay rugby team King’s Cross Steelers, and Chris Basiurski, chair of Gay Football Supporters’ Network (GFSN), have been selected to carry the Olympic torch in the London 2012 torch relay.

Both athletes have been actively involved in London-based gay sports teams for many years.

Basiurski has played with London-based gay football team Leftfooters. He also sits on the FA Tackling Homophobia in Football Working Group and recently met the prime minister at a reception in Downing Street to talk about diversity in sport.

Olympic Bosses Comment on Gay Games Event Ban

Olympic bosses comment on gay games event ban

International Olympic Committee says discrimination is banned but fail to slap down Russian authorities who have outlawed Pride House from the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi.

Olympic bosses have backed equality at the 2014 Winter games but avoided criticizing Russian authorities who have banned a gay Pride House from the event.

The first Pride House was held at the Winter Olympics in 2010 in Vancouver, Canada and it set to be repeated at the 2012 games in London this summer.

But, as Gay Star News reported last week, a judge in Russia has backed the ban imposed by the authorities on organizing Pride House for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia.

Peter Guber And Mike Tollin Partner To Launch Mandalay Sports Media

http://www.deadline.com/2012/03/peter-guber-and-mike-tollin-partner-to-launch-mandalay-sports-media/

Peter Guber’s Mandalay Entertainment Group is expanding its presence in sports entertainment. Film and television producer/director Mike Tollin has partnered with Mandalay’s chairman and CEO Guber and vice chairman and COO Paul Schaeffer to form Mandalay Sports Media. Like Guber’s other companies, MSM is self-financed. It will develop and produce sports-themed entertainment programming for distribution across multiple platforms including film, television, mobile, and digital. MSM already has several entertainment projects in development with ESPN, Turner Sports, New Line Cinema, and Incognito Pictures, among other distribution partners. While creating content and intellectual property is key, “building enterprise value” is equally important, said Guber. Also joining MSM as a founding partner is CAA Sports, while Funny Or Die president and CEO Dick Glover, who has an extensive sports media background, including a seven-year stint at ESPN, will serve as a board member.

Canada Lesbian Couple’s Engagement During Toronto Maple Leafs-Ottawa Senators Hockey Game

In what is likely the most heartwarming video you’ll see all day, a Canada-based lesbian couple took to the ice of a hockey game during intermission for a crowd-thrilling marriage proposal.

As Yahoo Sports is reporting, a Toronto Maple Leafs fan named Alicia was escorted onto the ice wearing a blindfold. When the blindfold was removed, she looked up at the video scoreboard and read a message from her girlfriend, an Ottawa Senators fan named Christina.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/19/canada-lesbian-couple-proposal-hockey-game_n_1363413.html?ref=topbar

Scott Heggart, Gay Canadian Jock, Documented Coming Out Process In Poignant YouTube Series

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/18/scott-heggart-gay-canadian-jock-youtube-videos_n_1357292.html?ref=email_share

Coming out can be a difficult process for any teenager. According to Scott Heggart, it’s even harder when you’re an athlete.

The Canadian-born Heggart, now 21 and a first-year communications student at the University of Ottawa, told the Ottawa Citizen he began to understand his sexualityin 7th grade, but feared that he would have to stop playing football, basketball, softball and hockey if he came out. “I’d started to understand who I was, what it meant,” he recalled. “The worst thing, from my teammates’ perspective, was to be gay.”

Accosting Boys in Showers: LGBTQ Athletes and Homophobia

Homophobia in sports has been in the news quite a bit lately. Several sports players have been fined in recent months for making homophobic comments or posting homophobic tweets on Twitter, leading some players and others involved in sports to wonder why there are so few openly gay athletes and what can be done about this.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bj-epstein/accosting-boys-in-showers_b_1298588.html

The necessary next step for You Can Play: A gay NHL player in ‘about two years’

Since the launch of the You Can Play Project during Sunday afternoon’s Bruins-Rangers game on NBC, Patrick Burke has received so much support and so many offers to help spread the message of tolerance, the Philadelphia Flyers scout said, “I think my Blackberry’s about to explode.”

So is the movement.

http://aol.sportingnews.com/nhl/story/2012-03-07/you-can-play-project-video-patrick-burke-brendan-burke-lgbt-athletes#ixzz1oaFT40nO

Flashback: Burke Keeps His Promise

http://sports.nationalpost.com/2011/03/21/flashback-burke-keeps-his-promise/

Post Sports columnist Bruce Arthur on Monday received his first National Newspaper Award nomination for a piece on Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke marching in Toronto’s Gay Pride Parade. Published on July 4, 2010, here it is in full:

TORONTO — On the 156th day of the rest of his life, Brian Burke woke up and he tried to keep another promise. He would march, he said. So he marched.

And marching was easier, in a way. Not that it was easy. As Brian Burke walked the streets of Toronto, sweating in the sun and waving at the sea of people at one of the world’s grandest Pride Parades, he thought about his son. He thought about Brendan, his beautiful boy. How could he not? Brendan was why he was here.

***

“He was a really bright, motivated kid, but his best attribute was his people skills,” Patrick Burke, Brendan’s older brother, says over the phone. “When he was a kid we’d go to the playground and he’d run around, and by the end, when it was time for my mom to take him home, everyone would be going, ‘Bye Brendan.’ ‘Bye Brendan.’ ‘Bye Brendan.’ He’d just go around and introduce himself. ‘Hi, I’m Brendan. How are you?’ He just had a natural way with people, and that alone would have made him a great success.”

Patrick Burke Spreads Message of Inclusion in Memory of Brendan Burke

http://sports.nationalpost.com/2012/03/04/patrick-burke-spreads-message-of-inclusion-in-memory-of-brendan-burke/

A few weeks after Patrick Burke made his brother Brendan swear on the Stanley Cup that he really was gay — that was what the boys always did when you wanted to prove something, swear on the Stanley Cup — he went to Brendan and he apologized. He said he was sorry if he ever said anything, did anything, to make Brendan feel uncomfortable before his younger brother came out of the closet to his family in December of 2007. He said, “I’m sorry if I ever made your life hard.”

Sunday, Patrick launched You Can Play with a public-service announcement during the first intermission of NBC’s game of the week. NHL player after NHL player spoke into the camera, as did Patrick and his father, Brian. The message was simple: It doesn’t matter if you’re gay. If you can play, you can play. Sports should welcome everyone.

Pro Hockey Players Fight Homophobia With ‘You Can Play’

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/03/04/pro-hockey-players-fight-homophobia-you-can-play/

BOSTON (Reuters) – Thirty players in the National Hockey League have joined a campaign intended to promote gay and lesbian equality in sports with a television ad that will premiere during Sunday’s matchup of the New York Rangers and Boston Bruins.

The campaign, called “You Can Play,” aims to combat what its organizers call an atmosphere of “casual homophobia” in locker rooms, in which slurs are carelessly used, creating a difficult atmosphere for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender athletes.

“You’ve got this thing where people don’t think there are, or choose not to believe there are, gay athletes in their locker rooms,” said Patrick Burke, a talent scout for the Philadelphia Flyers who is one of the co-founders of the program.